I Love the World
(Sullivan/Heaton)
The roll of distant thunder breaks
The afternoon of silence wakes
They hurry through from Petergate
As if they know this dance
In fury blind I drive at night
Across the moors, the open roads
Beneath the freezing starry skies
Racing in some trance
These cities are illusions of
Some triumph over Nature's laws
We've seen the iron carcass rust
And buildings topple into dust
And as the waters rise it seems
We cling to all the rootless things
The Christian lies, technology
While spirits scream and sing . .
Oh God I love the world
Well I never said I was a clever man
But I know enough to understand
That the endless leaps and forward plans
Will someday have to cease
You blind yourselves with comfort lies
Like lightning never strikes you twice
And we laugh at your amazed surprise
As the Ark begins to sink
This temple that is built so well
To separate us from ourselves
Is a power grown beyond control
A will without a face
And watching from outside I wish
That I could wash my hands of this
But we are locked together here
This bittersweet embrace . .
Oh God I love the world
And if one day the final fire
Explodes across the whitened sky
I know you've said you'd rather die
And make it over fast
With courage from your bravest friends
Waiting outside for the end
With no bitterness but an innocence
That I can't seem to grasp
I know somehow I will survive
This fury just to stay alive
So drunk with sickness weak with pain
I can walk the hills one last time
Scarred and smiling, dying slow
I'll scream to no one left at all
I told you so I told you so I told you so . .
Oh God I love the world